Saturday, June 18, 2011

Foxes Are Our Friends

Earlier this week, we realized that we have a family of gray foxes who have made a den underneath our back deck. I thought this was incredibly cool, but I quickly found out that some of my neighbors are not nearly as excited about this as I am. To be socially responsible, I called Animal Control, who recommended that I call the NC Wildlife Commission. They got me in touch with an agent for our area (who should be familiar with the current state of foxes/rabies/etc in our particular area).

The agent said that the most socially responsible thing that we can do is to leave the foxes alone. He said that they can be rabies carriers, but that it would probably be obvious if these foxes had rabies (by their appearance, their demeanor, and so forth). He said that after the kits grow up, the family will likely move on, and that they will probably only live there for a few weeks.